


The ice understands

by darkgreenwater



Category: The Terror (TV 2018), The Terror - Dan Simmons
Genre: M/M, confused feelings, romance in its own right
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-12-23
Updated: 2019-12-23
Packaged: 2021-02-26 00:03:21
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 495
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21924118
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/darkgreenwater/pseuds/darkgreenwater
Summary: James contemplates feelings and words from the past.
Relationships: Captain Francis Crozier/Commander James Fitzjames
Comments: 2
Kudos: 18





	The ice understands

**Author's Note:**

> This is an unfinished idea but let me know if it's worth continuing!

The ocean is vast. This James knows for certain. He also knows that water expands when it freezes. Glaciers can hold entire lakes worth of snow and ice. Water infiltrates, invades, takes over, expands, a perfect army in guise of a natural force.

He stares out at the loud, never-ending white. Subconsciously, he puts a gloveless hand on the railing. It stings, and James pulls back instantly - ice has got a mean bite. He wonders if he’ll ever get used to that.    
Francis once said, as they stood on deck in a snowstorm, that “ice may be unyielding but still it understands”. James smiled at the sentiment then, putting it off as one of Crozier’s many drunken wisdoms, said in a flurry of alcohol and snow. James remembers how he wished for spirit in his belly as well, to warm him from the inside. He also longed for Francis’ hands to warm him from the outside. Only one desire would be fulfilled that day. 

But that was long ago. Long before he took that first step, and even longer before he had lost his heart. As he stands now, listening to the subdued cracking sounds of the ice, he begins to understand what Francis had said was more than just the senseless words of an old fool. Maybe, he contemplates, the ice  _ does  _ understand. After all, doesn't the roaring of it match the noise inside James' head? Does the biting cold not reflect the feeling in the pit of his stomach?

But, most interesting of all, had Francis said this because he, too, has felt what James is now feeling? Has he stood here before and furrowed his brows in pain, brought on by the emotional turmoil inside him? 

It is no use thinking about it, Captain Fitzjames tells himself. With Crozier on board the  _ TERROR _ , the two ships hundreds of feet apart, stranded in the ice desert, James has never felt further from Francis. The physical distance between them that he has crossed so many times before, has never seemed so endless until now. How could they end up at this most desperate of points? Seemingly so irreversible. The loss - and yes, he deems it a loss already - tears at his heart, uncontrollably. Never would Captain James Fitzjames have thought that this old grunt Crozier would be able to compel James’ heart in such a mysterious, confusing way. 

“Then you are free.” This is what he had said when James told him about having reached the end of vanity. He’d touched him - squeezed his arm, pulled him closer - and smiled. Honest and meaningful, without any pity in his eyes. James teared up then because he couldn’t believe the kindness coming from Crozier. After months and months of animosity between them, to stand there now, lost and forlorn amidst the never-ending ice, and to have him seize him by the shoulders and not laugh at James’ deepest shame, but have him offer friendship, brotherhood. Love. 

  
  
  



End file.
